In May, Glenn Danzig filed a lawsuit against Jerry Only over what he considered unpaid royalities for all that glorious Misfits merch. Jerry Only called the lawsuit "sour grapes" saying the statuette of limitations has expired and countersued.
The trial finally went to court last week and the judge quickly dismissed it. On August 6th, a U.S. district judge dismissed the case on the grounds of improper filing. According to Re-tox.com, which has been covering the case from the beginning:
The primary failure, according to the court order, was that Danzig failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted (i.e. his arguments just weren’t up to snuff). [..]
Unfortunately, according to the judge, Danzig failed to allege which terms of the 1994 agreement Only actually breached. In the ruling, the judge notes that the merchandise provision of the 1994 agreement grants each co-owner (Danzig, Only, whoever) the “non-exclusive right to conduct merchandising and to exploit other rights relating to the use and exploitation of the name Misfits.” AND that each will retain 100% of what each earns individually from exploiting these merchandising rights.
Re-tox also reported that within the agreement, neither Danzig nor Only have to pay the other party in the event one makes more profit than the other. So, Danzig is pretty screwed here.
For now, this case is over, but Danzig could always amend his complaint and send it back to court. We have a feeling he might do just that.
Before ending this story, I want to give major props to the photo editor of Noisey for making this fantastic graphic:
